Merry Christmas

Today we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. For in Him we have hope.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. - Luke 2:11

This Christmas didn't look the way we had planned. But even in our suffering and the loss of our sweet girl Hannah Grace we celebrate the Lord, for we have known His peace and love in a deeper way than we ever expected. This Christmas we have truly known the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. - Isaiah 9:6

To those who have loved us, who cared for us, and who have continued to pray for us:

Merry Christmas from Kyle and Brittany

Kingsley Family Photo Shoot

As I mentioned Friday, us Kingsleys thought it would be a good idea to get out and take a decent pic of the family for Christmas. Not for a card or anything, but just to have a good picture. 

Each year for a while my mom always asked for pictures of us kids. My brother would take them and we'd sneak in and out of the house so she wouldn't know and we'd run to the 24-Hour Walgreen's to print the pictures on Christmas Eve so we could wrap them for the next morning.

This year we wanted to get Mom and Dad in on the action. We wanted it to be quick and easy, not everyone in the family likes having their picture taken, or dressing up and going and standing outside in the hot sun...

My goal was to get at least one good picture in under 30 minutes. So after I found us some shade, setup the tripod, and figured out how the timer works ... well ...

Oh and took these silly pictures of my sister... (oh we are the same...)

Then we snapped a few good ones. Can you tell we were standing in front of a very large Christmas tree? It was about 10:45am and we were getting full sun. So we made do and used the shade of the Christmas tree for the pictures. It doesn't even look like a tree right, more like a wall of green??

Once I figured out that the tree cast a large enough shadow the other direction I was able to snap a few with the lake in the background. Well, Kyle was able to snap a few... Isn't my family so handsome?

And then for good times we snapped one of the four kids. I'm sure we'll have to hang this one at the house, or make it the screensaver for my mom's computer at work... she loves us :)

This one may be my favorite though... I think it was my dad, or maybe Kyle, who said, "now everyone make the face for what you're really feeling right now." I think it's dead on...

Took these with my trusty fancy cam the Canon T2i with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS kit lens and our tripod from a garage sale. Turned out alright and everyone still loved each other at the end of the shoot... 30 minutes, at least one good picture: Check!

Don't forget to take pictures with your family, even if it's not Christmas anymore...

Christmas with the Kingsleys

I know it's January, but you haven't yet heard of our Christmas with the Kingsley fam (that's my side of the family, in case you didn't know me then.) It was good to be home for Christmas, down there in the hot Louisiana weather, running around last minute buying gifts, falling asleep on the couch like us Kingsleys do, eating lots of candy and getting fruit in our stockings, and getting to laugh at things only my family laughs at.

It's funny how you grow up thinking every other family is just like your own. And then one day, maybe when you spend Christmas at someone else's house you realize that everyone does it a little different. Even if you still prefer your own.

Us Kingsleys we start in our rooms, all waiting around until we are all up, not dressed and ready, but in our pajamas and ready to run down the stairs like little kids. Yelling down the stairs to make sure it's okay before we come down to all the Christmas morning. Well... except this year, when apparently they ran down before me, lol.

We first get the candy. My mom always buys what I would call 'too much' candy, and then after I eat all of it I realize that I wish she would have bought more, lol. Used to the candy was in our stockings or spilling out of our stockings, but now it's usually in a big pile. Fun to rummage through.

And then there are the actual stockings. they are old, very old. I do believe they are made out of my grandmother or great grandmother's quilt. Once the quilt had too many holes they made them into stockings. I love them. Aren't they beautiful? They're always filled with fruit, some years someone forgets to eat the banana and then we have a mess, but most years we (or mom) gets the fruit out fast enough. Some people get actual large gifts in their stockings like giftcards and DVDs, I don't know about all that... seems sort of silly. I like a stocking with candy and fruit, and then the occasional socks or hairbrush or two.

Then there are the presents and the gift giving and the gift opening. Usually the tree is larger, but since Dad got his new recliner a few a years ago the big tree goes in the dining room, lol. So we used this one for the gift opening.

This was one of things I realized we did so differently. See we go one by one. Mom selects each gift from the tree in particular order and hands them out one at a time. Mom picks out a gift, hands it to the recipient, they open it (ripping the paper, or tearing each piece of tape like some of us), and they hold it up and we all ooo and aaahh and take pictures and then we move on to the next gift. It's fun to get to see everyone's faces. We don't do any of that all-at-once kind of thing, although I hear it works really well for some people...

This year seemed like extra fun buying Mom and Dad's gifts. You know, because us 'kids' are now old enough to sometimes figure out what they would like and buy them things without borrowing money from them to buy their gifts, lol. Christmas morning is just for gifts from them to us, from us to them, and then gifts for Grandma who's attended Christmas morning with us for a few years now... we love having her there!

So this year I saw my mom pointing out some LSU painted ornaments online. So I made her a few...

Breakfast is it's own deal entirely. We usually open gifts before breakfast, but some of us can't wait that long. So this year my brother Jared made some yummy pumpkin bread. Doesn't it look yummy?

This is my dad. In his recliner. Saying, "you aren't taking a picture of me are you?" I told him I was just trying out my new lens and his feet would only be in the picture that the rest of him would be 'fuzzy.' I like him.

Then for lunch we go with the cousins, the ones on my mom's side of the family. We've been doing it that way forever: Dad's side of the family for Christmas Eve, Mom's side for Christmas Day lunch. Lucky most all of the fam lives in the same town. Luckier for us, my mom's brother and his family live next door... like stepping stones between the two houses, no need to knock, next door.

So we headed over to their place for lunch. And my sister agreed to pose for me...

I like her too... sometimes we are the same...

So we had a great lunch, usually something out of the ordinary. Like gumbo or chowder or shrimp stroganoff this year. Usually something that's not turkey oddly enough, usually something with rise (we are in Louisiana), and always with my other aunt's homemade bread.

Then the gifts. The cousins draw names and exchange gifts. We've been doing this forever too. Kyle drew Jared's name... Jared asked for "wacky dress socks." This is Jared opening his socks...

They were super hero socks. Yep, socks with capes...

After all the hooting and hollering over the capes we did a few more gifts, like the annual gifts from Uncle Keith. He's gotten us some great stuff over the years, used to go to the Nike store and buy 8 of one thing in 8 increasing sizes and it fit us all perfectly. He's good like that. Now his gifts always have meaning to them, I like that too.

Then the games. Someone usually brings a new board game or card game and we spend the rest of the afternoon playing games and laughing at each other.  This year we broke out an older version of Phase Ten.

Retro cards, right? I'm not sure who ever won, we had to leave to come back to Texas before the tenth phase was ever reached.

Good times at Kingsley Christmas. Catching up, being lazy, running around, eating Christmas Eve lunch at Sam's Club because their pizza is sooo good and we were already out taking family pictures...

Merry late Christmas. I hope yours was wonderful too. Oh and that one was me jumping over a short brick wall of a fountain to get to the camera. Didn't know the timer was on for one more shot.  We'll have the final picture soon, don't worry.

Merry New Year. Yep, our tree's still up...

Snow!

Being from Louisiana snow isn't something we see very often. Especially on Christmas. Kyle, on the other hand, is from Oklahoma where a few years ago they had like 11 inches on snow on Christmas. For Kyle, Christmas is cold weather and snow! For me, Christmas is when you wish you could wear your new Christmas sweater but it's just way too hot.

This year was no different down in Louisiana... it was like 78 degrees and thunderstorms on Christmas... and we were having to drive back to Lindale on Christmas evening. 

Bummer...

Until we heard it was snowing in Lindale!! This is what we found when we arrived home... a White Christmas!

Then the next morning we woke up to the snow still outside! So we took more pictures before I went to work. And then Kyle played in the snow...

Isn't that crazy and beautiful. A Christmas Miracle :) And that last one is our pineapple plants covered in snow, for those of you wondering. For Kelly and Malcolm: the pineapples are still growing, can you believe it?

Can I still say Merry Christmas?  Did you get snow too?

Merry Christmas from the Hess House

Merry Christmas from the Hess House!

We have been busy this week buying gifts and making gifts and wrapping gifts and making cookies and cookie exchanging and hosting game-show style competitions at our work parties and watching Home Alone and staring at our Christmas tree at all hours of the morning and night. It's been wonderfully Christmas-y at the Hess House.

Today we head to see my family for Christmas and I could not be more excited. We're still 'the kids' at my parents house, so we get to run down the stairs on Christmas morning and act a fool. We are still in our PJs and we all take turns opening gifts, Mom passes them out one by one and it's just the way I like it! We're looking at ice skating, family portrait taking, board game playing, and just plain ole family fun for the weekend. It'll be good to be "Home" for Christmas :)

I hope you have wonderful plans for Christmas, I hope you know how much everyone loves you and thinks of you. Really I hope you know how much God loves you, even if you're alone on Christmas, you still have Him. And it's kind of His birthday, so you have the guest of honor right there with you :) Praying that you have warm toes and warm hearts this Christmas.

Our best wishes, hoping that you are full of gingerbread and hot chocolate and family and love. We are truly blessed to have wonderful family and friends and a God who blesses us more than we deserve.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. - Luke 2:11

Merry Christmas from our little house to yours! May God bless you!

May your days be Merry and Bright, and May all your Christmases be white... or red with purple socks...

Merry Christmas!

Note - Not sure what the blog schedule will look like next week, I'll try to get our Christmas wrap up together and get some pictures up of all the holiday happenings this past week at the Hess House... but if I drink too much hot chocolate and get all jolly holiday with the fam, it may be a little delayed...

Merry Christmas!

My DIY Office Wreath: No more Bacon Wreath...

So I love Christmas wreaths. I think they're pretty simple to make and can look pretty hoppin' hanging on the door. Really, I like to make them. I remember back in the day when I made those wreaths with my mom where you bend a coat hanger and then tie fabric strips around it (and I think they may be back in style by now...). Also I remember teaching a guy friend of mine how to make a wreath in college; and finding glitter on everything for weeks.

My most recent attempt to make a wreath was kind of a failure. I had a plain wreath, I brought it to work. I forgot to decorate it beforehand. So I used my fun dietitian food models to decorate the wreath. I thought it was pretty creative of me to use only what I had around my office.

Then someone called it "interesting and creative" in the way that you say not-so-great-looking people have a "good personality." Someone compared my wreath to Lady Gaga wearing meat as a dress, and one of the doctors told me she had to be honest and say it was ugly. I think only then did I take my blinders off and realize it wasn't the cutest thing on the hall. But "cute," it was "cute," many people said so...

What do you think? I took a picture for you, even though that may be against the rules (but not really)?

Okay, so it's horrible. It's a wreath with bacon on it (yes that's bacon in the bottom left corner), but it's fake food if that makes it better? Worse part is that it's been on my door for almost two weeks! I had loads of craft supplies at home to make a fantastic wreath with but I kept forgetting to bring the wreath home and I was not about to cart my entire world of crafting supplies to work... or so I thought.

I thought about how I have nothing hanging in the walls in my office and how I probably look like the person with the least amount of crafti-ness in the place.

So I carted my craftiness up to work and pulled off the fruit/veggies/awkwardly wrapped orange juice and got to work. But with less than a week left in the office until Christmas I wasn't about to buy anything. So I had scavenged the craft bins at the house and found some pearls on wire (I used to make a hair clip once in college), some Christmas ribbon that I got from Target at last year's after-Christmas sale, some hemp from my lanyard making days, and a flower clip that I got as a gift for helping plan the Women's Retreat at church last fall.

I quickly twirled the ribbon and wove it into the wreath. Twisted the wire pearls into the wreath, and tied some bows in with the hemp. Added the flower and we called it done. Time was limited.

What do ya think? Not exactly the same style we have at home, but it's for the office so that's not a problem... And just in time for Christmas right?  Oh my goodness, I think I'm just now realizing exactly how close Christmas is. Like less than a week away! Ahhh!

Happy HurryUpIt'sAlmostChristmasAndDon'tForgettheHotChocolate! :)

Jesus' Birthday Party!

Yesterday we had a birthday party for Jesus. The kiddos were sure Jesus would like a pizza birthday party with chocolate cake and a selection of cheese and pepperoni pizza (who knew?).

I teach the Kindergarden through first grade kiddos on Sunday nights at church. We play games, learn Bible verses, tell Bible stories and I can almost guatantee that I make a fool of myself at least once a night. At times I've been a news anchor with a fake microphone, a crazy mom in a fake mini-van who is lost on the way to grandma's house, and very inexperienced travel agent taking my kiddos on imaginary walks through snowy mountains. I'm sure the kids think I'm crazy, but we have a good time.

Anyways, with Christmas being Jesus' birthday we talked about how Christmas really is like the biggest birthday party in the world. We talked about how we celebrate birthdays; you know, water parks, ballerinas parties, bounce houses, getting presents like Barbie dolls, and legos, and hunting guns (it's East Texas, lol). And then I broke the news to kids, they got to plan Jesus' birthday party!

From the time I said pizza they were excited. But I want them to remember that we celebrate Christmas because it's Jesus' birthday and He's a pretty special dude. We told the story of Jesus' birth, which got a little complicated when I was explaining how Joseph and Mary weren't married when marry was "with child" when I asked 'shocked' "then how did Mary have baby Jesus if they weren't married yet?" hoping to get the answer "God" or "the Holy Spirit," or something along those lines. Instead a kid said, "I know a lot of people who have babies before they're married!" Yep... I was just using "married" instead of "knowing in the Biblical sense" and I wasn't about to explain that to kindergarteners... so we moved along quickly.

Anyways, the kids voted and this is what we got... (hard to keep them all still for a pic, lol)

We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, thanked Him for being our very best friend, and then we tried to figure out how to get icing and pizza cleaned off the kiddos before they had to perform for the night's Christmas concert... oops!

Go ahead, make Jesus a birthday cake this year! It was real fun, and my kiddos loved it. And I loved the leftover cake...

A Little Outdoor Christmas Bling

Who doesn't love Christmas lights?! Well, who doesn't love Christmas lights once they are untangled and up on the house?!  After skipping the outdoor lights last year, we decided to bling-up the house this year with some lights. We hung got our lights up, and then we went to Santa Land, and so now we're dreaming about what we could create with lights in our front yard/roof/trees.

Anyways so we started at the Hess house. As I drank hot chocolate and ooo-ed and ahhh-ed, Kyle climbed up the ladder and did all the work. That's what big strong husband men are for, hanging sparkly Christmas lights on manly ladders, right? Anyways, a few strands of lights and a few roof clips later...

And then changing the camera settings just a bit...

It's simple, it's glowing, and we only have one outlet on the outside of the house (maybe we have more in the back yard...) but that's why you may see the random string of lights running down the front wall right in the center. Only one outlet for lights #firstworldproblems.

My favorite is when the lights are on and the Christmas tree is all lit up in the window. I love the Christmas trees you can see through people's windows. It's like the only appropriate time of the year to stare into other people's windows...right?

But then we got to dreaming... well, Kyle got to dreaming. What if we could wrap the entire pecan tree in lights? What if we could hang lights in the holly trees? We've been told that the previous owner lit the holly trees every year, and we've found remnants of the lights in the trees that apparently got cut once while trimming the tree. It was kind of exciting to figure out if we could Griswold the house into Christmas craziness.

But then it was cold and we figured we could plan something big for next year.

...and then we went to Santa Land. If you're not from Real Small Town, East Texas, you may not know about Santa Land. But if you've ever driven on I-20 past Highway 69, then you've probably seen it. Every day I drive past Santa Land on the way to and from work. It's actually on our exit. But it's a drive-thru Christmas light display that's been around here for years. The lines on the service road are backed up miles on weekends and nights nearing Christmas. It's kind of crazy. Like one time I couldn't exit the interstate because it was so blocked.  These people are serious about their Santa Land.

Don't be fooled though, I don't hate Santa Land. I'm actually enamored by it. I watch the glitter lights twinkle and dance around the 100 yard tunnel of Christmas trees and I've always wondered what it would be like to drive-thru Santa Land.

This year. We WENT! We took our friends Candace and Jody and forced them to drink hot chocolate and take pictures in really warm hats...

I could tell you all about the magic or I could just show you...

It was a good time. I was amazed at the number of the lights weaving in and out of trees, wondering how long it takes to get those up every year or if they even take them down or how they don't break if they're left up... Kyle was busy counting the cars and calculating the money Santa Land was making per car/per hour/per night/per Christmas season. He likes the idea of starting a business, and since he LOVES Christmas, he was locked in on the Santa Land business. I think he was calculating until we fell asleep that night...

or until he started taking pictures of the lights and thinking about how we could put up tons of lights in our yard...

Next year we could be Santa Land Part II. Look out!

Merry Christmas, may your days be merry and BRIGHT! It's not too late, get out there and light the house!

And did I mention I have not one but TWO Christmas parties tonight, and another on Sunday! I think the count after that will be five (not too shabby) at least until the next party on Wednesday...